Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoFred Squillante | DISPATCHBriggs coach Jim Martiny said Tori Pappas, left, and Jordyn Estep each has the ability to win an individual state championship.

Members of the Briggs girls bowling team are receiving royal treatment at the West Side school
this week.

“Not since 1991, when our boys basketball team made the final four, has Briggs gotten a team or
an individual to the state level,” said Jim Martiny, a teacher and coach there for 33 years.

Sophomore Tori Pappas, who learned to bowl at age 2, is excited to see others on her team and at
the school share her enthusiasm about Briggs competing in the state tournament today at Wayne Webb’s
Columbus Bowl.

“The teachers have been super supportive, offering us words of encouragement everywhere we go,
and the students are catching on, too,” Pappas said. “This is a pretty big deal at our school. We
haven’t had a whole lot of success in many sports here.”

Since Briggs opened in the fall of 1976, only boys track and field star Mike Lee (1977), a
softball team (1982) and the aforementioned boys basketball team have represented the purple and
gold in state competition.

Led by the potent one-two punch of Pappas and senior Jordyn Estep, Briggs finished runner-up to
Cardington at the district tournament and expects to be in the thick of the 16-team state race.
Pappas averaged 206.1 and Estep 195.9, ranking No. 1 and 2, respectively, in central Ohio this
season.

“Either one of those girls could be a state champion individually,” Martiny said. “It’s not that
farfetched. They’re that good.”

They took different paths to get that good. Pappas learned the sport from her father, a
top-notch competitor, and honed her skills through the years. Estep bowled when she was much
younger but gave it up to focus on softball and volleyball, sports in which she also excels. On a
whim, she joined the bowling team as a sophomore and averaged in the 140s. She improved her average
by more than 50 pins last season.

Pappas said Estep’s unlikely ascent has fueled her own competitive fire.

“Before, Mary Wells (of Westerville Central) had been my only rival, and when Jordyn comes along
and starts averaging in the 190s, it’s like, whoa, that’s amazing,” she said. “We’ve only made each
other better.”

Martiny, who spent most of his career coaching tennis before the Ohio High School Athletic
Association sanctioned bowling in 2007, isn’t sure how the Bruins — with one senior, two juniors
and two sophomores — will handle the pressure of the state tournament.

“We’ve faced at least five of these teams and competed right with them, and eight of them are
relative newcomers like us,” said Martiny, who was an All-American bowler at Central Michigan. “At
the state, it’s all about fighting through the nerves and making the top eight (in qualifying). And
from there, anything can happen.”